UAE-Led Scam Crackdown Identifies Over $39 Billion in Funds and Crypto

A UAE-led operation involving law enforcement from 30 countries identified more than $39 billion in funds and cryptocurrencies linked to scams, the country's Ministry of Interior said in an Oct. 22 announcement. Operation Confrontation Ghost resulted in more than 960 arrests and raids on 29 fraud centers, according to the ministry.

The $39 billion is an identification tally, not an announced seizure or recovery total. The ministry said participating countries, jurisdictions and private-sector partners were working toward recovering the assets. It did not specify how much of the total was cryptocurrency.

Running from July 1 through Sept. 30, 2026, the operation brought together Interpol, the Global Anti-Scam Alliance and 13 private-sector partners to target AI-enabled fraud, digital financial fraud and technology-facilitated sextortion. Investigators shared intelligence to identify suspects, map scam networks and track how money moved across borders, the ministry said.

Authorities identified more than 15,500 victims and more than 3,500 suspects across multiple countries. Investigations shut down over 570 social media accounts used to move money and manipulate victims, and identified more than 4,126 bank accounts linked to fraud, according to the release.

The ministry named all 30 participating countries, including the UAE, United Kingdom, Canada, China, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Kenya and Senegal. But it did not give a country-by-country breakdown of the arrests or locations of the 29 raided centers.

Private-sector participants included Crypto.com, Meta, TikTok, Mastercard, Huawei and Group-IB. The ministry said participants exchanged more than 9,000 pieces of intelligence and information between law enforcement agencies.

Identification Is Not Recovery

The announcement adds another enforcement tally to a series of international cybercrime operations, but the financial figures measure different things.

In Operation Serengeti III, Interpol reported 1,462 arrests and more than $105 million in illicit funds recovered across 21 countries. That operation ran from June 29 through Aug. 31, 2026, involving 20 African countries and the United States, as The Defiant previously reported.

Separately, the FBI said on Oct. 13 that its global Operation Blackout campaign had seized roughly $17 billion in “assets and crypto.” That is a seizure tally, unlike Confrontation Ghost's figure for identified funds. The releases do not establish whether the operations' financial totals overlap, so they should not be added together.

The UAE ministry said Confrontation Ghost's results were presented at a UAE-led side event during the United Nations organized-crime convention conference in Vienna. Asset recovery remained an ongoing effort in its announcement.